Touch Architect, XR Hardware

Google•San Jose, CA

3d•$188,000 - $274,000

About The Position

As a Staff Touch and Fingerprint Sensor Engineer, you will serve as the technical lead for capacitive touch and fingerprint biometric subsystems across our next-generation hardware portfolio. Sitting at the intersection of electrical engineering, signal processing, and human-computer interaction, you will bridge the gap between low-level capacitive physics and high-level user experience. You will partner upstream with UX Design, Industrial Design, and Human Factors teams to shape how users physically interact with our products. You will design and leverage user studies to turn ambiguous interaction goals into concrete electrical, mechanical, and algorithmic requirements—and lead internal cross-functional teams and external silicon/module partners to deliver industry-leading touch and biometric performance at scale. For decades, the computing revolution has reshaped our world driven by breakthroughs in compute, connectivity, mobile, and now, AI. Google's XR team is at the forefront of the next major leap – the convergence of AI and XR. This is more than just new devices – it's about reimagining how we interact with the world around us. We're building a future where lightweight XR devices like smart glasses and headsets pair with helpful AI to augment human intelligence, offering personalized, conversational, and contextually aware experiences.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Physics, or equivalent practical experience.
6 years of experience designing, integrating, and shipping capacitive touch and fingerprint sensor subsystems in consumer electronics.
3 years of experience developing sensing/fingerprint sensors and technology.
Experience leading capacitive sensing and biometric modules through the full product lifecycle.

Nice To Haves

Master’s or PhD degree in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Physics, or a related field.
7 years of industry experience in high-volume consumer hardware.
Experience operating at the intersection of Hardware Engineering and UX design.
Experience designing, leading, and analyzing user studies (e.g., psychophysical touch perception, ergonomic reachability, biometric FRR/FAR evaluations, real-world usability trials) to drive architectural and algorithmic decisions.
Experience defining custom automated test equipment (ATE).

Responsibilities

Own end-to-end architecture, specification, and execution of capacitive touch interfaces and fingerprint sensors across multiple product lines. Contribute to the multi-year sensing technology roadmap. Architect and oversee human-subject user studies and biometric trials to validate new touch interfaces, sensor placements, and firmware algorithms.
Act as primary technical bridge between Hardware and UX—co-developing interactive prototypes, defining touch and biometric UX metrics, and driving system trade-offs before architecture lock.
Lead complex cross-disciplinary debugging across Display, Mechanical, RF, Power, and Firmware teams to resolve noise coupling, mechanical stack-up tolerances, and algorithmic edge cases.
Drive IC and module suppliers on custom silicon/sensor development, factory calibration flows, compliance testing, and yield optimization through to mass production.
Establish internal best practices for touch/biometric benchmarking and user-experience validation. Mentor junior engineers on capacitive sensing fundamentals/human-centric hardware design.